It took awhile for us to reach this point, but Carlos Correa has finally come off the board in MLB free agency. Correa ended up re-signing with the Minnesota Twins after all, putting pen to paper on a six-year, $200 million contract that will see him be one of the highest paid players in the game, while also giving him another shot to hit free agency in the future.
Getting to this point, though, has been quite a battle. Correa made it clear from the get-go that he wanted to maximize his value in free agency, and he did whatever it took to get the most money possible for himself this offseason. In the process, though, he spurned two different teams, and potentially lost $150 million in the process.
Correa is a Twin now, and despite all we have seen from him this offseason, nothing is going to change that. And while Minnesota will be thrilled to have landed their star shortstop, it also has to be recognized that this may go down as one of the craziest free agency sagas in not just the MLB, but the world of sports as a whole. Let’s take a look at why that is the case.
Carlos Correa’s free agency saga will go down in MLB history
To understand the full scope of Correa’s saga, it’s important to first understand how we got here. Correa initially hit the open market last offseason, but of course, MLB free agency had a much different feel to it due to the MLB lockout. Correa was hoping to get a long-term deal, but ended up settling for a three-year, $105.3 million deal with the Twins instead.
Part of the reason Correa signed with Minnesota was due to the fact that he would be able to opt out of it and test free agency again if he had a good season. Sure enough, Correa had a strong debut season with the Twins (.291 BA, 22 HR, 64 RBI, .834 OPS) and unsurprisingly decided to opt out of his deal and attempt to get the long-term deal he was looking for last offseason.
Potentially hampering Correa’s market was the fact that he was hitting the market at the same time as three other star shortstops in Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and Dansby Swanson. But interest in Correa was always robust, and he initially outlasted Turner and Bogaerts on the market, before he reached an agreement with the San Francisco Giants for a 13-year, $350 million deal.
Typically when a player reaches an agreement with a team, all that’s left is a physical, hashing out some final details of the deal, and then the introductory press conference. But the Giants were concerned with Correa’s ankle, which he injured all the way back in 2014. The press conference never ended up happening, because Correa reached an agreement with the New York Mets for a 12-year, $315 million contract instead.
But the same issues that popped up with the Giants popped up here. The Mets were concerned with Correa’s ankle, and the deal was never finalized. That leads us to where we are now, with Correa signing with the Twins. There’s no backing out now, as the Twins had no concerns with Correa’s ankle, and he signed on the dotted line.
It’s not completely out of the ordinary for players to reach an agreement with a team before backing out, but to see it happen twice with the same player in the same offseason is unprecedented. Correa knew what he wanted from the get-go in free agency, and when the Giants and Mets tried to change things up on him, he bailed and went elsewhere.
Correa’s decision to leave the Giants and the Mets at the altar has generally been viewed as a scummy move by many folks, but that’s what can happen in the MLB, as well as any other sports league out there. Sports are a business at the end of the day, and Correa’s main goal has always been to find a way to maximize his value.
But in a sense, he didn’t really manage to do that here, because the deal he signed with Minnesota is far shorter, and worth far less, than the deals he had with San Francisco and New York. There isn’t total clarity on what spooked the Giants and Mets, and what changes they were looking to make to the deal, but it’s tough to imagine it would have been scaled down to the deal Correa has now received from the Twins.
In the end, Correa’s free agency saga is easily one of the wackiest sagas in recent memory, and chances are it will be a long time before we see anything similar happen with another player. It will be interesting to see how Correa performs with the Twins, because after everything that happened this offseason, there will be a lot of second-guessing happening in regards to these negotiations over the next few years.
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